Passing Hearts
by WeatherWatch
Summary: Lavender has always liked boys.


**Lavender has always liked boys – even some that she shouldn't.**

A Co-Educational Boarding School is bound to cause problems of love, lust and broken hearts, and Lavender is in first year when she thinks she could be quite happy falling in love. Oliver Wood is a burly fifth year, mad for Quidditch and is both Captain and Keeper for the House team. He might be obsessed with the game, but he's also energetic, Scottish and handsome.

She is lost in the stairs during the first month at school, having absolutely no idea where to find her Transfiguration classroom because the stairs decided to rearrange themselves and she's terrible at directions. Oliver seems to have a free period, because he's heading to the library, dawdling on the way, when he finds her, terrified about being late to class, and almost in tears. Oliver stops to ask her what's wrong, and it's too much to find out that he's a lovely, kind person too, so she bursts into tears and tells him that she's lost and he hushes her nicely and offers help – but only if she stops crying. When he winks at her, she thinks she might just die, but gives him a watery smile and lets him take her hand and show her the way. McGonagall looks surprised at first, but then gives him a thankful glance before he is off to the library, where he ought to have been ten minutes ago. Lavender thinks she might just be in love with him, but she's only eleven and he's fifteen so she doesn't do anything but smile at him when she sees him and try not to melt when he smiles back.

Her first Hogwarts Quidditch season has her cheering for Gryffindor naturally (though her enthusiasm is mostly for Oliver), but she is surprised to realise during one of the games that one of the Slytherin chasers is even better looking than Oliver.

Adrian Pucey is a sixth year. He has floppy brown hair, fine cheekbones and blue eyes, with a light build that is almost completely opposite to Oliver's burly size. He doesn't smile very often, not properly, but he smirks like the devil himself was his teacher and it makes Lavender blush when he catches her staring at one day at breakfast, because he's so calm and confident and completely _Slytherin_. Of course, she understands the concept of forbidden fruit and temptation; her mother is fond of romance novels, despite her proper exterior.

Between the two boys, Lavender wishes that she was five years older. (_Because then they might like her back.)_

OoO

Second year is frightening, because there are attacks on muggleborns and nobody knows what is causing them, but Lavender realises that she is particularly scared for Dean, and can't understand why for a number of weeks until she finds herself staring at the back of his head in History of Magic, daydreaming. She goes red and Parvati worriedly asks if she's alright, to which she murmurs yes, thank you, just a bit warm, and spends the remainder of the class reading her text. She thought that she might work with him one day in class, but she knows that he and Seamus are more inseparable than Harry and Ron, so she does nothing and is happy to keep her feelings to herself. After all, she's only twelve.

A mistimed swear in class sees her with detention (despite the fact that she's explained the profanity as a reaction to knocking her funny bone against the corner of her desk) and she's joined in Herbology greenhouse four by Ron's brothers Fred and George. They're funny and a little bit mental, she thinks, but after their detention she can't stop thinking about them and smiling. Parvati gives her knowing looks and threatens to announce her crush on Wood to the common room unless she is dished out the news. Together they gush about the Weasley twins and giggle over their pranks and red hair, and Lavender adds a comment about their identical appearances that makes Parvati roll her eyes (she's heard every twin remark that ever was, being one herself).

(Naturally, second year also results in the school-wide obsession with Gilderoy Lockhart, but Lavender has put that from her mind because Harry and Ron came out with a rather unflattering truth regarding the Defence Professor.)

OoO

In third year, Lavender finds herself in the library looking through old yearbooks. Nobody has ever escaped from Azkaban, and she's unsure if she's impressed or bitterly scared. Looking through the photos from nineteen seventy-seven, she pauses on the first page of seventh years. The picture of Sirius Black is almost irreconcilable to the wanted posters that are decorating the Wizarding and muggle worlds. He is a handsome, vivacious character with no shades of darkness about him. His hair is perhaps a touch too long, but wavy and dark, and he looks like the biggest mischief maker she has ever seen (more so than even the Weasley twins). For the second time in her life, she is being tempted by forbidden fruits, even though all evidence points to his being a highly dangerous criminal. She doesn't connect the handsome face in this book to the man in the posters. It hurts too much to think that such a change is possible.

But not everything is a sad story, because it is this year that Lavender recognises that the Irish accent is quite possibly a gift from God and Merlin together to the women of the world. Seamus is turning into quite the charmer now that he's realised how brilliant girls are, and he's a little flirt, too, so it's no surprise when Lavender starts getting butterflies when he seeks her out for chats (they've become quite good friends this year).

OoO

The Tri-Wizard Tournament follows straight after the Quidditch World Cup and Hogwarts is in an uproar because Viktor Krum is visiting (and competing) and Hogwarts end up with two Champions – Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory.

Cedric is a Hufflepuff, and one of the nicest, most genuine people anyone could hope to meet. Most of the girls have a crush on him, so she isn't worried about her reactions to his good natured, country countenance, but she's also not at all concerned with House rivalries because she's decided that Harry is also looking quite fetching these days with his scruffy, unmanageable hair and, well, they _are_ always encouraging House unity, so in the end she chooses to support them both.

Cedric looks amazing in his swim trunks and she knows she isn't the only girl staring at his unclothed body, because several whistles break through the cheering, making Cedric turn a little pink, though he beams up at the crowd. When Harry is the last to surface there is a lot of manly back-clapping between he and the Hufflepuff and the news reaches them that Harry, having gotten to the location first, had waited to ensure everybody's safety and in doing so rescued the Beauxbaton student's prize (her little sister!) from the depths as well as Ron.

The Gryffindors are elated at the points he wins for gallantry, and everybody celebrates through the night (Lavender gives him a hug and dazzling smile, but Harry doesn't seem very interested in girls other than Hermione, even though _that_ is a strictly platonic relationship).

When Cedric dies, when he is murdered on Lord Voldemort's orders, Lavender feels like her heart has been ripped out of her chest. This handsome, kind boy whom she ogled in plain sight and giggled over with Parvati is gone. His life is snuffed out as if it had no value (according to the Hogwarts rumour mill, Harry said that Voldemort instructed that the "spare" be killed, and Lavender feels sick that Cedric Diggory is demoted to such a horrible label as 'spare' because he was wonderful and she can't stand that kind of disrespect) and she cries for a week, feeling dirty for remembering such superficial things like how attractive he looked in swim trunks when he's now dead and cold and unable to do things like go swimming, or smile, or breathe.

That is when she feels her heart break for the first time.

OoO

Lavender hides away in the library for the first few weeks back at Hogwarts, looking at the yearbooks once again, because they are all the physical memories she can access of Cedric and she is still in shock over his murder.

She meets Terry in the school history section by accident, but he is quiet and friendly, if a little socially awkward, though she can't blame him, really, because she is quite certain that she's been crying for the last ten minutes and that never helps boys' confidence. He offers her a hanky and smile and recites to her a pretty saying when he sees whose picture she is looking at; "Life has to end, love doesn't."

She's fond of Terry before she starts to like him _like that_ because he's smart but doesn't look down on her for being a little bit ditzy. He has floppy brown hair, which seems to be turning into a bit of a theme in the boys she crushes on, but he has a patch of blue in the back on the left side which intrigues her, and remains a mystery because he won't tell her why it's there or where it came from.

They study together on Saturdays, and Lavender's marks rise considerably as a result. She is happy because Terry makes her laugh and is genuinely good company. She asks him to Hogsmeade one weekend and he agrees, sounding a little surprised, but chuffed (she can tell, because his cheeks turn pink though he smiles anyway).

It's lovely, but nothing changes in their relationship so after several months she decides to fall back into an easy friendship. Terry is remarkably easy to break up with (she thinks it's because he is very rational and her argument was purposefully logical and structured) and they remain friends. It's easy to do that when you're in separate Houses.

A few weeks after the dissolution of this romantic entanglement, Lavender finally understands some of what Parvati has said about Draco Malfoy. She has never seen him as particularly attractive (when they were younger his features were much too pointy, his skin too white and his hair too slick), but he has grown over the Christmas break and his hair isn't being controlled by gel, so she notices him in a manner other than neutral observance, and as she lusts after him she realises that if he wasn't a complete arse she would definitely be looking into developing Inter-House relations with the pale Slytherin.

Unfortunately, her dreams for House Unity are dashed every time he opens his pretty mouth.

OoO

Sixth year washes away any lingering feelings she might have indulged regarding Draco Malfoy because he is looking terrible, and acting awfully suspicious.

This year, she's developed a fondness for a certain red headed Gryffindor by the name of Ronald Weasley. Up until now, puberty hasn't been particularly kind to the youngest Weasley boy, but his voice has settled on a stomach tingling baritone, his gangly figure has filled out, and he's suddenly found an interest in girls.

She makes a point to talk to him more this year, and after his success as Keeper in the Quidditch Cup she makes the decision to grab the bull by the horns and kisses him enthusiastically. She's matched, and they are a couple from that point on; only Hermione looks discontent with this, but Lavender has no time for petty bouts of jealousy. She has her Won-Won and not much else matters.

Terry reminds her three times that she needs to watch her study habits because her marks are slipping, but nothing works until she suddenly finds herself without a boyfriend while Ron is recovering in the Hospital Wing from a dose of poisoned mead. Her heart is broken again, because Won Won wants Hermione, and Lavender can't take it so she escapes to her hideaway in the library, away from ex-boyfriends and female competition and her own life.

Irritatingly, her usual seat is occupied.

Blaise Zabini is an enigma among the sixth years – always has been, really – because he is quiet, unassuming, and completely unattached to Malfoy's coven of cronies despite being of the same pure, quality lineage.

The olive skinned boy is a bit of a loner, but he is also the epitome of dark and mysterious, with the typical hairstyle of a pureblood heir: long, tied back with a ribbon at the nape of his neck. Her gasp of surprise alerts him to her presence and he looks her up and down with a distinct air of superiority and a hint of disgust.

"Crying should never occur in public. It is both disconcerting and unattractive," he declares before clearing half the desk for her to put her arms should she choose to sit. Taken aback, it's all she can do.

He is doing exactly what she has been doing in this corner since she found the photo of Sirius Black in third year – he is perusing yearbooks.

They are much older than the ones that she looked through (from the nineteen thirties it appears).

He is reading about a Tom Marvolo Riddle and Lavender decides then and there that she doesn't like the name at all, though she doesn't understand why. It's a gut feeling, and when she looks at the picture accompanying the text she can't figure out why the boy in it seems too good to be true.

Objectively, this Hogwarts alumni student is conventionally attractive. But something that Lavender can't pinpoint gives him a disturbing edge. She recoils slightly from the picture and Blaise looks at her with actual interest when she does so, clearly curious.

"That's an unexpected reaction to the image of a Head Boy – especially one that was a recipient of an Award for Special Services to the School." Blaise says with an expression she can't decipher. "Trust your instincts, Miss Brown."

With that, he is gone, Lavender is alone, and the Slytherin remains an enigma. She feels an impending sense of doom, and the queasy sensation makes her fearful. Things are going to take a definite turn for the worse, she thinks.

Less than a week later the school wards are breached and Dumbledore is dead.

OoO

Seventh year is so horrible that not even Lavender can find solace in petty romances. She feels as if she has spent the year with her head in books, or looking at the floor because she can't bear to look up and see what her world has become. There are so many students missing that it hurts to remember them – she feels tears well up every time she looks at Hermione's empty bed. She hopes and prays that the muggleborn isn't dead.

When the sun rises on the aftermath of the Final Battle, Lavender is lying in a pool of her own blood, grace of Fenrir Greyback, her pulse so slow and breathing so shallow that it takes three people walking by her before someone realises she's alive. That someone happens to be Blaise, and he carries her limp, mangled body into the Hall, where the injured are being tended, leaving her with Padma Patil. Of course, Lavender is unaware of any this because she has long since fallen into unconsciousness.

Waking up in the stark white rooms of St Mungo's leaves Lavender indecisive as to whether she's dead or alive, and in her incoherent state she can't figure out which one she'd rather be.

She has few visitors over the next few weeks – her parents, Parvati, and Terry she knows came for certain, but there is another person who eludes her recognition, because they are only ever there when she's asleep, and disappear out the door when her eyes flutter open.

OoO

Lavender has recovered as well as her body can, but retains the scars from Greyback's mauling, wearing them like badges. She is proud to have fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. Many people avoid looking at her, but she doesn't care for them, she is a survivor and a warrior and she'll be damned if any of these people can make her feel less than a heroine.

She is walking through Diagon Alley one morning when she literally bumps into the Slytherin enigma. Blaise has been working at Flourish and Blotts, needing money because his mother has cut him off to ensure that her new husband will include her in his will. When he looks up into her eyes, his calm demeanour and complete ease within his own body takes her by surprise (after all, she hasn't seen him in almost a year). They are all older, the children who attended Hogwarts in 1998 – in body and in mind.

She can't stop the light blush that paints her cheeks. Blaise smiles like the cat that got the cream and explains that he is on his lunchbreak, and if she has time, might she join him. He is polite, but his request really leaves no room for argument.

Lavender says yes because she has missed the simple delight in having a boy look at her as just a girl.

**End.**

**Well. I hope you like it. I love Lavender, and I kind of think she's the type to be crushing on all sorts, all the time, so this just sort of happened…**

**Please, Read and Review like a Responsible Reviewer.**


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